Saturday, July 14, 2007

The life of an author, any author by Margot Justes

Think about what it takes to succeed as a published author. Most of us have day jobs, you know, the ones that actually pay us to work and the check arrives at regular intervals.

Then comes the other life, the life of an author, the marketing job, the self promotion job, the in your face, please buy my book job. As an example, I was at Marshall Field’s today (also known as Macy’s) made a purchase and asked the sales woman if she liked to read, and I the shy one, gave her some business cards, and asked her to check out my web site. Since there were a couple of other women in line, guess what, they got the cards too. They were very gracious, and told me they would check it out. So the promotion continues full speed…

Wait, there is more, we promote, we sell whenever we can, we blog, we set up contests, something I personally haven’t done yet, but it is expected, and there is still more, we have to continue writing our next book.

Let’s not forget the organizations we belong too, and volunteer our time to, the conferences we have to attend, the panels we have to schedule, etc…any one tired yet?

The amazing thing about all of this is that not one of us would give it up…ever. It’s in our blood, in the very air we breathe, it’s in the continuous dream of plots and character development, and its 'Colonel Mustard did with a candlestick in the library' puzzle some of us have to solve.